*Rules*1. No bashing. If this is not your type of game, we don't need to know. If you have a religious hatred of EA or Origin, we don't want to hear about that either. We're here to discuss Mass Effect 3.2. Use Spoiler tags. Please!

I'm about a third of the way through, I think, with a female Adept that I've played from the beginning of the series. Here's what I think so far:

Likes:Graphics are improved, again. It's still UE3 but the textures are sharp, the shaders are smooth, and the geometric meshes in the models are well done.The music is awesome, like the rest of the series, and helps make the game.Combat in general is better, and the AI seems to do a better job of not letting you just mow them down, even on the default difficulty mode. Also, the new melee stuff rocks!Game pacing is very smooth, with mining taken out from the second game as well as all the box opening/door opening mini-games from both previous installments.

Could have been improved:The pre-rendered cutscenes. They're too low resolution, which may be OK on a 32" 720p TV 10 feet away, but at three feet from my 30" 1600p monitor average DVDs would put them to shame.Cover/Dodging is still a little clunky. I've started getting used to it, largely by trying not to make unnecessary directional movements on WASD.Lipsynching! What the hell! Somehow it looks like Bioware has regressed here, and I've basically had to stop looking speaker's mouths.Facial animations also could use an improvement, and seem to have similarly regressed from what I remember in ME2 and Dragon Age 2, as well as what I'm seeing in The Old Republic.

Overall, I'm having a blast with the gameplay, the story is engrossing (enough), and seeing old characters come back has been great. So far, I've enjoyed the encounter with Jack the most.

Last edited by Airmantharp on Thu Mar 08, 2012 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Started playing it yesterday. I'm just glad I didn't have any problems with Origin.

So far it's pretty good. Just picked up Garrus and it's like meeting an old friend. Kinda sad that a Soldier seems to be no longer uber powerful anymore. I miss my supercharged Adrenaline Rush =)

Runs like a dream on my 6950 @ 1920x1200 but it's not like this is the most amazing graphical game ever. Still, I'm not playing this game for the graphics.

Gameplay is a bit slicker but cover is always twitchy and I'm getting used to it. Recharge rates on my powers are ridiculously fast since I only carry two weapons haha. The V to look at something mechanic is great though. It's horrible when a character is talking about something "just yonder" and you're looking all around for it.

BTW, how do you quickly dispatch the guys with the portable tower shield? So far I've just overloaded them with powers or flanked them but I keep feeling that there should be a way to deal with the shield. Also, if the Reapers are chasing you around in a system, how do you "cool it down"? I clicked away the tooltip for that by mistake before reading it so I've been just running around in and out of the system to collect all the stuff lol.

ChronoReverse wrote:Runs like a dream on my 6950 @ 1920x1200 but it's not like this is the most amazing graphical game ever. Still, I'm not playing this game for the graphics.

Incredibly smooth with my HD6950 2GB CFX @ 2560x1600 here as well- I'm just glad that it worked well out of the gate!

ChronoReverse wrote:Gameplay is a bit slicker but cover is always twitchy and I'm getting used to it. Recharge rates on my powers are ridiculously fast since I only carry two weapons haha. The V to look at something mechanic is great though. It's horrible when a character is talking about something "just yonder" and you're looking all around for it.

The 'V' thing is definitely nice, but it doesn't always point to where you need to go. I've actually found myself looking around for things for longer than I'd like simply because I didn't pay attention to where I was going in the first place (doh). Also, there might be a map, but if there is, I haven't used it yet!

ChronoReverse wrote:BTW, how do you quickly dispatch the guys with the portable tower shield? So far I've just overloaded them with powers or flanked them but I keep feeling that there should be a way to deal with the shield. Also, if the Reapers are chasing you around in a system, how do you "cool it down"? I clicked away the tooltip for that by mistake before reading it so I've been just running around in and out of the system to collect all the stuff lol.

The tower shield can be yanked away from them with 'Pull,' after which they go down almost instantly. As far as getting away from the Reapers, I've only done it once, and I did it by flying out of the system past the green circle (that's where I was going anyway). Not sure what you would do otherwise, except try to beat them to a relay?

Well that's what I've been doing. I'd dodge out of the green and then come back in to quickly grab the resource and run out again (repeat until 100%). But there was a tooltip detailing what to do when the Reapers are coming but I clicked it away before reading it by mistake. Oh well.

Anyway, I haven't played the game yet, but there is already a huge outrage at the BSN over the lackluster ending that was leaked.

Basically, the Reaper were created by some ancient precursors to kill/absorb "advanced" organic civilizations before they reach a technological singularity. Ironically, Reapers are the very definition of a singularity. The entire thing is circular logic at its finest.

The deus ex machina(Crucible) in stopping the Reapers is buried on Mars. The damm thing was one big reset button if you think about it.

Shepard makes a choice (Using the Crucible) that comes down to accepting the reapers, combine organics/synthetics, kill all synthetics. In all of the outcomes, the Mass Relay Network gets destroyed, Normandy itself gets stranded on a remote world and Shepard "dies".

It seems like the ending was rushed and it wasn't completely thought out.

I finished teh game today. Without any major spoilers (if you want them - go to official forums), I'd have to rate it as follows:The overall game up until the ending: 5 out of 5. As good as the ME2. The actual ending (at least what I've personally seen): maybe 1 out of 5, or lower, still not sure (I was very disappointed - I know that ME3 is supposed to be last game in "series", at least for now, but I would've preferred a little bit more... cheerful ending. I see enough sad stuff in real life).

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They were both rushed to meet holiday/season sales (IIRC, ME3 was meant to be release back in Dec 11) and as result both of them were lackluster and wasted so much potential.

It would have made a lot more sense the Reaper's motivation for wiping out advanced civilizations is because it was their "food". They need Ezero/biological materials in vast quantities to survive. Ezero and pure synthetics don't mix, this was hinted a lot back in ME1/ME2 (Notice, how there were no Geth or any synthetic biotics). Originally Reapers went through their own singularity millions of years ago and their civilization depended on Ezero (which they had discover/synthesized). They made the tragic mistake that Ezero only works with biological components and their new form abandoned it. In other to survive, they need biological components. Ezero was worthless to non-sentient life, since they don't use it. This forced the Reaper to depend on sentient life to use it. They carefully laced the galaxy with Ezero and Ezero related technology to force sentient life to use. A single Reaper (Sovereign) is left behind to monitor the progress of sentient life until it reaches the point where it can fully reserve engineer everything and learn the awful truth. The single Reaper unleashes the rest of the pack to begin the dark harvest. Reapers don't see any of this as "evil", because part of their reproduction involved adsorbing tons of sentient life into a hive-mind. In effect, they believe are giving their victim a chance to progress their level of development (which normally takes millions of years) and protect them from self-destruction. I'm sure the Reapers have seen countless evidence of biological sentient life destroying itself over the cycles.

What makes Ezero? Dark-Energy and matter under extreme conditions. Dark-energy triggered supernovae events generate tons of Ezero. There are a ton of hints in ME1/ME2 that Ezero isn't naturally occurring.

So playing the Multiplayer has an effect on the ending. I dont know how I like that. MP is fun, but forcing you to play is.....dumb.

One thing I noticed is that my Vanguard- High risk style of gameplay doesnt work as well as it did in 1 and 2. I found myself overwhelmed at times and died. I am rolling with an Adept now and the combos with Liara are awesome! I never fire a weapon. Hell I could go weaponless if I wanted too.

FWIW Jack is my most favorite character out of the series. I wish the game would let me have her powers!

ChronoReverse wrote:BTW, how do you quickly dispatch the guys with the portable tower shield? So far I've just overloaded them with powers or flanked them but I keep feeling that there should be a way to deal with the shield. Also, if the Reapers are chasing you around in a system, how do you "cool it down"? I clicked away the tooltip for that by mistake before reading it so I've been just running around in and out of the system to collect all the stuff lol.

Use the Pull power. It yanks the shield from their grip.

Fastfreak39: I feel like they should change the phrase "jumping on the band wagon" to "sailing on the pirate ship"

ChronoReverse wrote:Gameplay is a bit slicker but cover is always twitchy and I'm getting used to it.

Yeah, I've noticed the controls in general are more twitchy than previous incarnations. It will take some practice, methinks.

ChronoReverse wrote:Also, if the Reapers are chasing you around in a system, how do you "cool it down"? I clicked away the tooltip for that by mistake before reading it so I've been just running around in and out of the system to collect all the stuff lol.

Go complete a mission somewhere. It will reset the Reaper awareness.

I'm just getting started, as I have to split my time between ME3 and taxes. I haven't actually found a resource using the scanner, but I've only visited systems that have an active mission in them so far. Do you just fly around randomly and ping? Or do you fly close to a planet to scan for resources?

If there is one thing a remote-controlled, silent and unseeable surveillance/killing machine needs, it’s more whimsy. -- Marcus

tanker27 wrote:So playing the Multiplayer has an effect on the ending. I dont know how I like that. MP is fun, but forcing you to play is.....dumb.

One thing I noticed is that my Vanguard- High risk style of gameplay doesnt work as well as it did in 1 and 2. I found myself overwhelmed at times and died. I am rolling with an Adept now and the combos with Liara are awesome! I never fire a weapon. Hell I could go weaponless if I wanted too.

FWIW Jack is my most favorite character out of the series. I wish the game would let me have her powers!

Vanguard in ME2/ME3 is meant for the twitch-shooter crowd. It relies on hitting hard and fast.

ChronoReverse wrote: Also, if the Reapers are chasing you around in a system, how do you "cool it down"? I clicked away the tooltip for that by mistake before reading it so I've been just running around in and out of the system to collect all the stuff lol.

You have to go quest/ leave the whole system all together to cool it down. Usually a quick run to the citadel and back does the trick. What I normally do is run in and ping the heck out of a system and then run. your discoveries stay illuminated.

ChronoReverse wrote: Also, if the Reapers are chasing you around in a system, how do you "cool it down"? I clicked away the tooltip for that by mistake before reading it so I've been just running around in and out of the system to collect all the stuff lol.

You have to go quest/ leave the whole system all together to cool it down. Usually a quick run to the citadel and back does the trick. What I normally do is run in and ping the heck out of a system and then run. your discoveries stay illuminated.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I've been doing. Nice to know it can actually reset though.

Darkmage wrote:I haven't actually found a resource using the scanner, but I've only visited systems that have an active mission in them so far. Do you just fly around randomly and ping? Or do you fly close to a planet to scan for resources?

Divide a system into areas that can be covered by the ping scanner. Particularly on the planets (the locations are fixed so you can even cheat by save scumming). If a planet is highlighted with the red circle after a ping, fly to it, go into orbit and start scanning. Follow the white line to find the resource/artifact (one per planet at most so far for me).

Philldoe wrote:Use the Pull power. It yanks the shield from their grip.

Ah, don't have any character with that ability yet, no wonder I didn't discover that. Well, I've just been Adrenaline Rushing and shooting through that slot (or their legs) for now.

They were both rushed to meet holiday/season sales (IIRC, ME3 was meant to be release back in Dec 11) and as result both of them were lackluster and wasted so much potential.

It would have made a lot more sense the Reaper's motivation for wiping out advanced civilizations is because it was their "food". They need Ezero/biological materials in vast quantities to survive. Ezero and pure synthetics don't mix, this was hinted a lot back in ME1/ME2 (Notice, how there were no Geth or any synthetic biotics). Originally Reapers went through their own singularity millions of years ago and their civilization depended on Ezero (which they had discover/synthesized). They made the tragic mistake that Ezero only works with biological components and their new form abandoned it. In other to survive, they need biological components. Ezero was worthless to non-sentient life, since they don't use it. This forced the Reaper to depend on sentient life to use it. They carefully laced the galaxy with Ezero and Ezero related technology to force sentient life to use. A single Reaper (Sovereign) is left behind to monitor the progress of sentient life until it reaches the point where it can fully reserve engineer everything and learn the awful truth. The single Reaper unleashes the rest of the pack to begin the dark harvest. Reapers don't see any of this as "evil", because part of their reproduction involved adsorbing tons of sentient life into a hive-mind. In effect, they believe are giving their victim a chance to progress their level of development (which normally takes millions of years) and protect them from self-destruction. I'm sure the Reapers have seen countless evidence of biological sentient life destroying itself over the cycles.

What makes Ezero? Dark-Energy and matter under extreme conditions. Dark-energy triggered supernovae events generate tons of Ezero. There are a ton of hints in ME1/ME2 that Ezero isn't naturally occurring.

I don't really care about teh Reaper's motivation, it's just the whole "ending options" part is badly screwed-up. First, the lame "war assets" mechanics. That AI/whatever "ghost kid" at the end really cares about how many planets I've wasted my time on scanning/exploring and whether or not I've played multiplayer??? WTF??? This lame "grinding" mechanics belong to the lame games like Fable 3, it has no place in good games... Second of all, this is not a "fixed-function" book or a movie, it's an interactive game - if I want to have a "happy ending" scenes, with Shepard and his current crew retiring from all this "saving the galaxy" thing and sitting somewhere in the bar on rebuilt Earth or Shepard and Tali (without her suit) sitting in their new home at the rebuilt Rannoch or even Shepard getting owned by Legion while playing CounterStrike, I MUST be somehow allowed to have such "endings", preferably without any retarded "resource grinding" mechanics. Instead this game only gave me one of the most disappointing "ending options" in my experience, with the whole "Sacrifice yourself!!1111" cliché theme at the end. I hate to generalize but I somehow have the feeling that it really was a very wrong move for Bioware to "join" the EA...

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Just read something amusing on Mac Walters' (the lead writer for Mass Effect series) twitter post:http://twitter.com/#!/macwalterslives/s ... 7928892416Basically he's saying that he's also "looking forward to the future of ME franchise after the ME3 endings"... Seems like they (EA?) wanna turn Shepard into some sort of Phoenix where he constantly "dies" and get "revived" in one form (as himself) or another (as a different person by another name at a different time period but with same characteristics) over and over with each new game in this series

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JohnC wrote:Just read something amusing on Mac Walters' (the lead writer for Mass Effect series) twitter post:http://twitter.com/#!/macwalterslives/s ... 7928892416Basically he's saying that he's also "looking forward to the future of ME franchise after the ME3 endings"... Seems like they (EA?) wanna turn Shepard into some sort of Phoenix where he constantly "dies" and get "revived" in one form (as himself) or another (as a different person by another name at a different time period but with same characteristics) over and over with each new game in this series

I doubt that. Bioware has a knack for making interesting characters. There's a whole universe to take from now.

FWIW My FemShep has lived but its not what I call a perfect ending. I still have more work to do to get that. There are 16 different endings, BTW with 3 different combinations

I'm stuck playing it on my Xbox 360 since that's where I started the series and wasn't about to replay all the games on the pc when they came out. It's a lot of fun, but I not being able to play on my 30 inch dells with my 2x 7950s sticks in my craw a bit...

I don't really care about teh Reaper's motivation, it's just the whole "ending options" part is badly screwed-up. First, the lame "war assets" mechanics. That AI/whatever "ghost kid" at the end really cares about how many planets I've wasted my time on scanning/exploring and whether or not I've played multiplayer??? WTF??? This lame "grinding" mechanics belong to the lame games like Fable 3, it has no place in good games... Second of all, this is not a "fixed-function" book or a movie, it's an interactive game - if I want to have a "happy ending" scenes, with Shepard and his current crew retiring from all this "saving the galaxy" thing and sitting somewhere in the bar on rebuilt Earth or Shepard and Tali (without her suit) sitting in their new home at the rebuilt Rannoch or even Shepard getting owned by Legion while playing CounterStrike, I MUST be somehow allowed to have such "endings", preferably without any retarded "resource grinding" mechanics. Instead this game only gave me one of the most disappointing "ending options" in my experience, with the whole "Sacrifice yourself!!1111" cliché theme at the end. I hate to generalize but I somehow have the feeling that it really was a very wrong move for Bioware to "join" the EA...

I wasn't really bother by destruction of the network and Shepard getting "killed". Shepard and most of the NPCs who died had death flags throughout the whole trilogy. It makes sense for the network to get destroy for two of the endings, since it is biggest sign that Reapers no control the "destiny" of organic life. They are free at a cost, however Ezero isn't inert and FTL-drive still work. The galaxy can slowly rebuild itself and force itself to innovate into new directions. The relay network destruction makes no sense for the joining the Reapers ending though. I figure that Shepard would finish the job and restart the entire process over and to patch up the previous holes.

The kid being the Catalyst's avatar was rather jarring at best. It should have been Jenkins from the first game.

Like I said the ending was clearly rushed and wasn't completely thought out.

JohnC wrote:Just read something amusing on Mac Walters' (the lead writer for Mass Effect series) twitter post:http://twitter.com/#!/macwalterslives/s ... 7928892416Basically he's saying that he's also "looking forward to the future of ME franchise after the ME3 endings"... Seems like they (EA?) wanna turn Shepard into some sort of Phoenix where he constantly "dies" and get "revived" in one form (as himself) or another (as a different person by another name at a different time period but with same characteristics) over and over with each new game in this series

I doubt that. Bioware has a knack for making interesting characters. There's a whole universe to take from now.

I don't doubt the Bioware's ability of making an "interesting characters" but I really doubt that ME universe needs any continuations in any form... The only viable alternative source would be a "Shepard before the events of ME1", since I see no logical way how the story can progress after the "bad endings" of ME3 which (judging by Bioware's own forums) about 90% of people got during their first playthrough, except the obvious "we can rebuild everything destroyed and then a new hero will arise to face a yet unknown threats from vast unknowns of space!!!!11" cliché crap and besides, I really don't want to experience yet another "let's create a new likeable character, surround him/her with an interesting characters who develop a very warm friendship with him/her and then "surprise" the majority of game players by sacrificing him/her and end all of those developed relationships between characters in a very abrupt and disappointing way"

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Krogoth wrote:Shepard and most of the NPCs who died had death flags throughout the whole trilogy.

Well, yes and no. "Yes" because of Bioware's own sadistic persistence of trying to kill Shepard throughout all the ME games, especially ME2 where he can "die" twice, depending on the chosen "ending". "No" because his own "death" in ME3 didn't really have any serious "death flags" from the beginning of the game - he didn't have a "Darkspawn Taint" or some kind of "space AIDS" in him which would be slowly "killing" him and necessitate "permadeath" before "old age", plus he was constantly "cheering up" his "companions", promising them that "this fight won't be the last", same goes for companions saying stuff "when this is over, drinks are on me, blah, blah, blah", plus all those cheerful romantic moments with certain companions (depending on player's choice), plus there was already plenty of death and HUGE amounts of destruction witnessed throughout the game, such as "forced" Legion's death (regardless of the choices or amount of Paragon/Renegade points) or a very sad (though kinda deserving) Mordin's (optional "Paragon" choice) sacrifice, so there's absolutely NO good reason why Bioware shouldn't allow a choice of more "cheerful" ending (ALL of the existing "endings" in ME3 are crap) for MAJORITY of players... Unless, of course, EA is forcing Bioware to charge extra $15 for a "good ending" DLC some time in future

Krogoth wrote:Like I said the ending was clearly rushed and wasn't completely thought out

That's probably true. EA probably has a much shorter deadlines than Bioware would like to have, so as a result we get stuff like this, or DA2, or the whole SWTOR abomination.

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I find this really interesting. While I personally didnt like any of the endings for my Shepard I was ok with the one I chose. I do wish there were some "better" endings and I for one could think up some good ones especially when Bioware seems to think they will continue the Mass Effect IP in some form.

Now it just seems like Bioware is kowtowing to public pressure and it makes it look as if the ending was rushed whether it be true or not.